Crop plants often experience a few days of cold fronts in the seasons of winter, early spring, or late fall, causing a considerable decrease in seed germination, photosynthesis, flowering and yield production.
This phenomenon of the plant injury caused by exposure to low temperature is known as “chilling injury” in the industry.
If the low temperature duration lasts for a relatively short period of time, plants can repair the damages. If the exposure is prolonged, irreversible damage usually occurs, along with visible symptoms.
Chilling injury and stress adversely affects a wide range of processes, including ethylene production, increase respiration, reduced photosynthesis, interference with energy production, accumulation of toxic compounds such as ethanol and acetaldehyde and altered cellular structure.
The primary cause of chilling injury is associated with oxidative damage at cellular level. Chilling stress induces the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), such as superoxide radicals (O2−) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), triggering a series of deleterious processes including membrane lipid peroxidation and degradation of proteins and nucleic acids in plant cells. Plants have active oxygen scavenging systems consisting of several antioxidant enzymes, including superoxide dismutase (SOD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), catalase (CAT) and peroxidase (POX). The synchronous action of antioxidant enzymes is able to reduce the cellular ROS concentrations, thereby decrease the oxidative damage to structure of cell membrane and play a protective role during the exposure of plants to chilling stress.
Consequently, there is a need for a remedy to combat the oxidative damage at cellular level that leads to the chilling injury of the plants in such exposure to low temperature.
By making an aqueous solution mixing the selected biochemicals of Choline chloride, γ-Amino butyric acid (GABA), Ascorbic acid, and Betaine, in the proportion stated herein, the solution, when made into a spray solution by further dilution with water, will help to promote the activities of the antioxidant enzymes in plants, to help the defense against the low temperature exposure and the accelerate the needed repair and recovery from the suffered injury.